Year 3 Day 264 – “Living the Dream”. Sunday, 1/21/2024. Day 10 of 12-day winter 2024 vacation. Day 8 of 7-night Western Caribbean cruise on Harmony of the Seas. Disembarking in Galveston, Texas, driving to Little Rock Arkansas.
As we walk across deck 15 this morning in jeans and a coat, I am freezing. It is 41 degrees Fahrenheit. I sit down to breakfast and check the temperature on the outside cameras at home and it is -13 Fahrenheit. OMG OMG OMG. I can’t believe we canceled the next two weeks. PLEASE can I stay on board. We are in the car by 8:08am. It is windy, cloudy and cold.
We were going to head up to Oklahoma City for the night to add another state to our quest to step foot in all states. But there is going to be freezing rain tonight into tomorrow going that way. So, we change our direction of travel and head to Little Rock. Arkansas for the night. By 9:30am we are checked online into room 407 at the Hilton Garden Inn in North Little Rock, Arkansas. We stayed at this hotel last year and it was a great hotel. We are paying $138.04 for the night. Since we are Diamond, we get a free cooked to order breakfast in the morning. The breakfast was good last year. Here is a link to the days at this hotel last year. https://deestimes.com/…/living-the-dream-year-2-day…/ and https://deestimes.com/…/living-the-dream-year-2-day…/ Driving through Houston, we pulled off of Interstate 69 to get coffee at McDonalds. There were many tents and sleeping people under the overpass. It was so sad. They must be very cold. In the afternoon we passed Crater of Diamonds State Park located in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. I wish it was warmer and we could have stopped. Have you ever heard of this park. It is a 37-acre field which is the eroded surface of a volcanic crater. Occasionally it comes up in the news. It is one of the only places in the world where the public can search for real diamonds in their original volcanic source. Any rock or mineral you find is yours to keep. More than 35,000 diamonds have been found by park visitors since the Crater of Diamonds became an Arkansas state park in 1972. The 40.23 carat Uncle Sam which is the largest diamond ever unearthed in the United States was found there. One or two diamonds are found each day. Some are very large. In fact, on Thursday, January 11, 2024, Julien Navas, of Paris, France, visited Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park for the first time. While there, he found a 7.46-carat diamond on the surface of the park’s 37.5-acre search area. This place looks so cool. Check out their website. https://www.arkansasstateparks.com/…/crater-diamonds…. We also passed a fire on the side of the highway. You never know what you will find or see in traveling.
As we get closer to our hotel in Little Rock, we see the roads have been brined. There is supposed to be freezing rain tomorrow morning. Yikes, this makes me very nervous!
Things to ponder today! Have to leave you thinking.
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To view the complete daily diary, click here – This starts at Year 1 Day 1: Living the Dream – Deestimes – Make every step of the journey count